Wholesome Apples

Originally written Sunday October 2, 2011

"Girls are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. The boys don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree. "

I just read this thought shared on Facebook by a boy I went to junior high and high school with. Now he is a grown man married to a lovely wife, the father of talented children. The ironic thing about the post is that I hung on at the top of the tree waiting for someone like him to ask me out on a date all through high school. I watched him and others date other girls; girls who had lower standards; girls who usually wore a lot less.

Had this young man or one of the others asked me out at that time, probably little would have come from it. But still I was awfully sad to be ignored up there in the windy branches on top. While I wasn’t looking for a wild night of partying, a entertaining night of games or dancing or singing or anything wholesome would have been welcome. Instead I sat in my ivory tower “watching from the windows.”

Rapunzel sings in Disney’s Tangled:

All those years watching from the windows
All those years, outside looking in
All that time, never even knowing
Just how blind I’ve been –

I think back on those painful days of high school waiting for a boy, any boy, to notice me. It was hard. I wondered if maybe he was scared of me, maybe he was lazy. Maybe the boy was blinded by the sun and didn’t see how great I was up there, me and all my dateless friends.

In the end I realize now that I was as blind as he was. I thought then that I needed that boy to make me happy. I thought that I was not complete without him or some male at my side.

This is not to say that I don’t adore my husband. He is an extraordinary man who wasn’t scared to climb the tree, the tower. He braved both the barrier and the last 20+ years with me. I love him. He is a special part of my life, but neither he, nor the boy from high school, could give me my worth.

I disagree with the end of Disney’s Rapunzel song because seeing a man, marrying a man, even the man who is the other half of my whole, isn't the key to filling up my need inside. Perhaps the true irony in all this is that the only person who can affirm my true worth is me.

Eliza R. Snow said of women nearly 150 years ago:
“We like to be appreciated but if we do not get all the appreciation which we think is our due, what matters? We know the Lord has laid high responsibilities upon us, and there is not a wish or desire that the Lord has implanted in our hearts in righteousness but will be realized, and the greatest good we can do to ourselves and each other is to refine and cultivate ourselves in everything that is good and ennobling to qualify us for those responsibilities.”

In reality, my fellow top branch hangers and I are sweet, wholesome, delightful and amazing! We are a capable bunch with a great work to do. We hope to do it in companionship with one of those young men standing at the base of the tree looking up and wondering if the act of climbing the tree and then sticking to the commitment claiming us entails is worth the investment of self.

Either way, we apples – we are worth a priceless amount.